Ceasefire in Gaza

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman reminds this House of the seriousness of the issue before us: not just the ceasefire, but the long yards and roads to peace. That is why in Labour’s motion, we talk about compliance with the International Court of Justice’s rulings and international law, and about Palestinian recognition on the road to the two-state solution. We are also absolutely clear that we should do nothing in this Chamber that cuts across the hard work of Arab partners, EU partners, the United States and our Five Eyes allies that are in the room trying to broker that peace. We on the Opposition Benches say that with some humbleness, because neither of our parties is in the room.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

The shadow Minister has talked about how the SNP’s motion does not contain any plan for a long-lasting peace after an immediate ceasefire. I therefore want to know why the Labour motion includes a caveat that notes that

“Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence”.

Hamas is not the people of Palestine, so why is that line in the Labour amendment?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady is as educated as I am. She understands that a ceasefire takes two sides, so it is crystal clear that if we expect Israel to lay down its arms, we must ask Hamas to do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I want begin with something that Frankie Boyle said. He pointed out that it makes no sense to say that the situation in Gaza is too complex for a ceasefire, because ceasefire is one of the oldest and simplest terms to understand. It means stop firing. In fact, it is so simple that it is designed to be heard and understood in the middle of a literal battle. So there is no middle ground when it comes to a ceasefire: you either follow the order or you don’t. You either stop firing or you don’t.

During the 2014 crisis, there were an estimated 2,251 Palestinian deaths. The then Prime Minister rightly called for an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire. If we fast-forward 10 years to the current conflict, we have a death toll of nearly 30,000, and that is not including the bodies yet to be recovered from underneath the rubble, and yet the very same man—he is now Foreign Secretary—is failing to support a ceasefire. Nearly 70,000 people have been injured. According to Amnesty International, the death rate in Gaza right now is one death every four minutes. It is not just bombs that are killing Palestinians; it is poor sanitation and malnutrition as well.

We know that people are starving. People are being reduced to eating grass and animal feed. In January—last month—over half of all aid deliveries were denied access and could not get through to those who needed it. Less than half of the hospitals in Gaza are even partially functioning, and the few that are will quickly run out of supplies unless Israel allows aid through.

Since 2008, Israel has refused entry to any UN agency individuals, which to me is a giant red flag in and of itself. Despite these attempts to shield themselves and hide from any accountability, we know that war crimes are being committed in Gaza. Churches sheltering hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been bombed to the ground. There have been strikes against people in refugee camps and hospitals. Earlier this week, there were reports that Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of a hospital, only to start sniper fire on those who attempted to leave, leaving 2,500 folk still trapped in the hospital.

Israel’s own Minister of Defence said there would be

“a complete siege on Gaza… No electricity no food, no water, no gas”.

As the occupying power, Israel has an obligation under international law to ensure that the basic needs of Gaza’s civilian population are met. It is not doing that. The International Court of Justice specifically directed Israel to take

“immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of…basic services and humanitarian assistance”

It is not doing that. Israel still refuses to reinstate the water supply it so cruelly shut off months ago. It is stopping medicine getting in. It is stopping food entering Gaza and, despite the growing likelihood of famine that it will have created, it is still not budging.

Let us be absolutely clear that the actions of Hamas were horrific and unjustifiable, but, as I said earlier to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), the people of Palestine are not Hamas. Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate bombing of civilians, combined with everything else that we know, must be the very definition of collective punishment, which as we all know is illegal under international law—it is a war crime.

That is why how this place responds it is so important. In many respects, the ending of the violence in Gaza rests in the hands of the countries supplying the money and the weapons to Israel. The arms trade treaty bans the sale of weapons when there is a concern that they may be used to breach international law. Given that the International Court of Justice has found that there is a plausible risk that Israel is committing genocide, it is upon the UK to revoke all arms licences and military equipment to Israel; otherwise, we break the treaties that we have signed up to. Warm words and platitudes will not cut it—only action will.

One death every four minutes. In the time of this debate, as we all talk among ourselves, 100 more people who were alive this morning will be dead. The least we can do is call for a ceasefire. If we do not, we will be morally and directly complicit in every single life lost and every single family destroyed in Gaza. The route to peace, the route to justice and the route to any humane conclusion begins with an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Anything less from us, and future generations will quite rightly never forgive us or forget.

International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I want to start by saying that I am very proud that Scotland is one of the world’s leading LGBTI+ rights countries in the world, and I am proud that I and the Scottish Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in particular.

I know that I am not alone in feeling that ignorance is rearing its ugly head again, but it is our job to make sure that we bring people with us. The reality is that most folk do not know a lot about trans people; they do not know a lot about trans issues; and they do not know a lot about the laws that we are seeking to reform. I want to use today as an opportunity to take a little heat out of such discussions and explain and answer some of the concerns that people have about the Gender Recognition Act and trans rights more broadly.

First, the Act provides a process for trans people to obtain a gender recognition certificate, which is basically the equivalent of a new birth certificate, but it reflects who that person is. To take part in this process, a person must pay a £140 fee; they must be over 18; they must not be married and if they are married spousal consent has to be given; they must have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria through medical and psychiatric reports; they must prove that they have lived fully for two years in their gender; and then they must present this dossier of evidence to a gender recognition panel, which we know from gathering evidence is a really redundant system and which asks a lot of totally inappropriate and irrelevant questions.

Let me talk about the problems with the GRA as it stands. First, not all folk can afford the £140 fee. That cost can be covered in instances of low income, but medical and psychiatric reports, which can cost an absolute bomb for a lot of people, are not covered. Then there is the idea that someone needs spousal consent if they are married. That is a medieval kind of rule. For someone to prove that they have lived for two years in a certain gender is as redundant as it is hypocritical. Action for Trans Health warned that this requirement can force trans people to conform to outdated norms of gender and behaviour. It also risks outing these individuals, because if they are challenged at some point in those two years, they do not have a gender recognition certificate and could therefore find themselves in a dangerous situation, so it is a totally unjustified ask.

Finally, the requirement of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is absolutely ridiculous. The World Health Organisation removed trans gender from the international classification of diseases. Another look at this shows that it removed homosexuality only in 1992. Gender dysphoria is defined as distress or discomfort caused by a mismatch between gender identity and the identity assigned at birth. It is important to say that not every trans person experiences gender dysphoria. A comparable hypothetical situation would be if I had to go to a doctor and get a clinical diagnosis of anxiety or depression before someone believes that I am gay. Of course, a lot of gay people experience anxiety and depression in relation to their sexuality, but that is because of the way that the world treats us at the minute; it is not a medical consequence of being gay. The same is true of a trans gender person experiencing gender dysphoria.

The great thing about the Gender Recognition Act when it first came out in 2004 was that it recognised that not all trans people are physically or mentally prepared for surgery for a whole range of nuanced and different reasons. The everyday bigotry and ignorance experienced by trans people creates a vicious cycle of harassment and exclusion. I for one understand why many trans people are too emotionally exhausted to entertain this process to even get a GRC.

Under the reforms that have been put forward in Scotland—this place is looking at similar reforms—an individual would appear in person before a justice of the peace to make a statutory declaration confirming the truth of their application and their intention to live in their acquired gender for the remainder of their lives. The penalty for obtaining this by fraud would be two years in jail. This would bring us into line with international best practice, as we already see in Argentina, Malta, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland. No evidence from any of those countries suggests that the system is abused in any way.

The Scottish Government’s consultation ended in March 2018. There were 15,000 responses, all of which were overwhelmingly in support of the reforms. Close the Gap, Equate Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Women 50:50 and Zero Tolerance support all these reforms and released a joint statement saying:

“We do not regard trans equality and women’s equality to contradict or be in competition with each other”.

To be clear, there are absolutely no suggestions that we should change the exclusion clause in the Equality Act 2010, and it is the Equality Act that deals with single-sex services, where a lot of the recent concerns that have been surfacing seem to lie. If anyone wants to look this up for research purposes, page 7 of the Equality Act states that exclusion clauses can be used where

“a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”

can be shown.

It is important to follow that by saying that Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid already provide trans-inclusive services on the basis of self-ID, and have done so for well over a decade. They appreciate that trans women are running from the same abuse, the same toxic masculinity, and the same sexual and physical violence as other women they serve. We hear concerns such as, “What if an abusive male partner turns up to a refuge centre and starts self-identifying as a woman?” Well, the reality is that they would be treated in exactly the same way as an abusive lesbian partner turning up to a refuge. These questions already have answers. People have a right to express legitimate concerns and questions, but what I am saying just now is that either we are witnessing an open attack on rights that are already established and long have been, or we are seeing a worrying level of ignorance.

The only people responsible for abuse are abusers. We understand that men perpetrate more abuse against women, and we have to understand this trend if we want to challenge it, but that does not legitimise framing discussions on trans rights from the viewpoint that trans women are a threat. It is the same tactic used by the far right. For example, the far right portrays sexual crimes by Muslim men as endemic, yet ignores the fact that most rapists and paedophiles are actually white men. We hear arguments that we cannot have a compassionate social security system because benefits scroungers will just cheat and abuse the system, when the truth is that that does not actually happen a lot. The bigger problem is people not claiming what they are entitled to. Fake stories or individual cases are used to smear entire communities, against wider evidence. The same thing regularly happens to the trans community, and it is happening just now.

For me, being a feminist means dismantling the patriarchy. That patriarchy has hurt every different identity in society in different ways—whether in all the battles that feminists have been fighting on women’s behalf for generations, or in men not feeling able to talk about their mental health or to seek help because they cannot be seen as weak or vulnerable. Even within the LGB community, we see the harm that this patriarchy does. We see guys who feel the need to be effeminate because they are gay, or women who feel the need to become butch because they are lesbian. All these insecurities are instilled in people, and they play out in different ways.

We live in a highly gendered and patriarchal world. Many people fail to grasp that it is also an incredibly heterosexual and binary world, and this goes hand in hand with the patriarchy. It is quite telling that there seems to be little concern—certainly little vocal concern—for trans men and the situations that they might find themselves in. Being an LGBT ally is more than supporting our existence and rights in theory; rather, it is demonstrating and taking personal responsibility to educate ourselves to understand the everyday barriers and prejudices that we face. We have to find out why the general welfare of trans people is so awful, given that they make up less than 1% of the population. People are right to express legitimate questions and concerns, but if they dig deep enough, I think they will find that the answers are indeed there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mhairi Black Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

Given our legacy and the breadth of our influence over the last couple of hundred years, I think it wrong for any Government in the world to point to British policy and say that, historically, it is the cause. All laws can be updated, and both sides have a responsibility to come together and resolve this matter for the long term.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

2. What guidance he issues to British embassies on whether they are obliged to respond to inquiries from British companies seeking assistance to understand the laws and regulations relating to their business dealings with the country in which the embassy is based.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Our embassies and high commissions play a key role in promoting British interests and helping British companies to enter new markets. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have led delegations of businesses overseas, and we work closely with UKTI to ensure that our businesses receive continued support and advice.

[Mhairi Black]

One of my constituents has written to a certain embassy many times, and, although it acknowledges his correspondence, he has never received any further response, which is preventing him from fulfilling an important part of a significant business deal. Could the Minister provide any assistance by obtaining a full response from the embassy on behalf of my constituent, so that he can be given more information?

[Mr Ellwood]

I was aware of that case, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it. If any other Members are concerned about a lack of support from embassies for businesses in their constituencies, will they please let us know?

I understand that the head of UKTI in Morocco, with which the company concerned wishes to trade, has been speaking to the company directly. I can only apologise for the delay in providing the normal level of support that we would expect to give any company wishing to do business in Morocco or, indeed, anywhere else.